Over the last two decades, the internet has grown from a discreet network of government laboratories and universities into a ubiquitous and essential tool for businesses, and an integral part of everyday life. Web sites, the building blocks of the internet, are growing at an exponential rate and have evolved from simply displaying information into interactive applications of seemingly limitless functionality. Many companies use web sites to offer services and conveniences to their customers, such as banks offering online web sites to check balances, pay bills, transfer money, etc. Other companies are entirely web-based, offering their products and services only through web sites, e.g., EBAY®, AMAZON.COM ®, YAHOO!®, GOOGLE, etc.
On approximately the same timeline, mobile devices such as personal data assistants (PDA's), hand-held computers, and cellular telephones have proliferated and are now commonplace in both the business and consumer markets. In fact, in some countries, the average person may carry two or more mobile devices. Traditionally PDA's and cell phones served only very distinct and limited functions. PDA's were mini-computers used typically as organizers for storing contact and calendar information, taking notes, etc. Cellular telephones were simply just mobile telephones. Today, the functionality and features of such devices has merged and evolved, such that multi-function mobile devices are now capable of telephone communications, e-mail, web browsing, data management, and other mobile communications and computing functions. Yet, even with the convenience of being able to browse, or surf, the internet from such prolific and portable devices, the adoption of mobile devices as a viable tool to access the internet has been limited.
One primary reason for the limited adoption of mobile devices for internet communications relates to the relatively small viewing area of mobile device phone displays. The majority of the web sites available over the internet are designed to be displayed on a computer screen of 15 inches or more, and are not effectively displayed on a the limited screen of a cell phone, for example. Moreover, the interactive features of most web sites are designed for typical computer interfaces (e.g., display, mouse and keyboard). The rich content and interactive features of many websites, therefore, can be virtually unusable on mobile devices, which generally having screens of approximately 1.5 to 2 inches and a typical 11 key number pad, along with a few navigation soft keys.
Attempts to address this problem include advances in client browser software, which try to render web pages in an acceptable manner for the small viewing area of mobile devices. Computer algorithms have been developed to try to reformat and reorganize the contents of returned web pages to fit within the given screen display. However, such computer algorithms are not capable of optimizing the entire myriad of different web pages and content available over the internet, simply because of so much variation in the layout, content and features of existing websites.
On the server side, web site developers in some cases have created separate versions of their web pages specifically designed for viewing by mobile devices. For example, YAHOO!® has a YAHOO!® Mobile site that serves WML, a markup language similar to HTML, but specific for use by mobile devices. A typical WML page includes contents and features the may be very different from the regular web page, but is designed to fit within the small display areas on mobile phones. This approach is not widely used, however, and requires that the host maintains at least separate sets of web pages, e.g., one for regular desktop browsers and one for mobile device browsers. Such approaches also limit user interaction within the context of the web browser and user interface (UI) controls of the web page. They do not provide for customization of features and provisioning of interface controls to optimize usability and functionality of the page using a particular device.
Still another attempted approach for solving this problem includes creating profiles to help transform HTML and related code from web pages into some intermediary language or code to be displayed by a mobile device. Such profiles may include, for example, information about the size of the display area as well as color and language preferences. A computer algorithm then uses the profile information along with the source information to try to display an optimal view of the page on the mobile device.
However, because web pages have so much variation in content, layout, format, and functionality, the above approach has proven unsuccessful in solving the problem of effectively displaying and interacting with such ubiquitous web content using a mobile device. In particular, creating a generic computer algorithm capable of optimally or even adequately displaying any significant fraction of the large number of web pages available over the internet is simply not feasible.
Another limitation of existing approaches for navigating web sites using a cell phone or other mobile client is the problem of navigating pages and inputting text using the limited key pad of a cell phone. WML does allow the web page designer to specify short cut keys, or keys or buttons that bind to specific links within the web page. While some input technologies such as T9Word can help simplify text input by helping to auto-complete common words as a user begins to spell them, such technologies do not fully optimize a particular interface.
Thus there remains a need in the art for systems and methods for customizing and optimizing display and functionality of web sites and related content using mobile devices.
Discussion or citation of a reference herein will not be construed as an admission that such reference is prior art to the present invention.